king_mosiah: This was an just an old man who made comic strips, not someone with authority, using their position to oppress and censor the population in order to hold power. And it almost sounds like you have an issue with the very idea of being allowed to say offensive things...
jamyskis: Well,
here I made more or less exactly the same point, and I also listed examples of people who were much more deserving of such hatred.
I was actually tempted to agree with you that this was just a harmless old man really, until, when looking for comic strips to prove that he was, I found a number of other strips which were blatantly defamatory in nature.
Whether I have an issue with the very idea of being allowed to say offensive things? No, not inherently. The boundary that the far right in particular likes to deliberately blur in order to silence criticism of their views is the boundary between offensive statements and defamation, and that's a common problem with far-right extremism and right-wing libertarianism (and no, I'm not saying that these two are the same, hence why I list them separately). I have absolutely no problem with the right of people to say something offensive. Heck, I'm even known myself to tell, repeat and find funny sexist, racist, and otherwise fairly un-PC jokes.
Un-PC jokes and constructive criticism are fair game. Insults, too, to a reasonable extent. But defamation - untrue or distorted public statements made for the purpose of deliberately harming the reputation of or inciting hatred or violence against a person or group of people - is not fair game, and I'm up for punishing it to whatever extent possible. The notoriously lop-sided nature of US society is largely attributable to the ability of the political, oligarchical and religious extremes to defame to their heart's content and mislabel it as "freedom of speech".
Just to be clear: legally and ethically,
freedom of speech is a freedom from prior restraint. You cannot be punished for the sole fact of having said or written something in particular. You can, however, be punished for the effects of those statements, intended or otherwise - that's why perjury, libel, slander and fraud are all crimes and fully compatible with the First Amendment.
But well done for arguing with me when I actually initially agreed with you on Chick's supposed "harmlessness", and in doing so actually encouraging me to find the proof that I was wrong to agree with you.
Could you give some examples of him doing any of these things? Also, If I said that I didn't like group B or made some anti group B propaganda, and some nut attacks an person or persons in group B, am I to blame? What if what I said was a joke or satire?